New York, New York
by PageTurn
Summary: Earning his love the first time around took all that Draco had. Doing it again will be nearly impossible, but letting Harry Potter go was entirely out of the question. DM/HP. AU. Mulit-part series.


**New York, New York** – Book I  
By: PageTurn

Summary: Earning his love the first time around took all that Draco had. Doing it again will be nearly impossible, but letting Harry Potter go was entirely out of the question. DM/HP. AU.

Disclaimer: I claim no responsibility for _Harry Potter_, property of J. K. Rowling.  
This fiction is heavily researched, and all locations and objects are real. I have no permission to use them, nor do I post ownership of said notions.

* * *

"_The heart that truly loves never forgets."_  
_Proverb_

* * *

Chapter I

_How _dare _he?_

Those three words roared about in Harry's skull, so potent he could almost hear them. Rage burned in his vision, and his throat felt constricted with repressed sobs. He couldn't tell if his skin felt numb from all the emotional turmoil wrecking havoc on his physical being, or from the rumbling beast situated between his knees.

Harry Potter's actions were foolish, and he knew it. He didn't care. He was going to catch them, rip them apart, and then promptly shatter into a thousand pieces. Currently, he felt that the tiny threads of his clothing were all that held him together. His jeans felt heavy and tight against his legs, the stolen memo in his back pocket weighing him down in more ways than one.

Normally, and when blank, a piece of paper that size weighed only a fraction of an ounce. But this one had writing – in that perfect, symmetrical penmanship – burdening the fibers like acid rain. The words were etched in lead, and each letter was encapsulated in steel and uranium, as permanent and immovable as cooled Adamantium.

_Shelby_  
_12:45_  
_Parkside_

Harry had had his suspicions for quite some time. The out-of-office lunch meetings, the secretive smiles, the cold shoulders…

How had it come to this?

It was cold. Winter had swept in early, and was peeking its way past autumn early. Light flurries fell a few times a week but never stuck, and were often followed by freezing rain. The hastily-thrown-on Kevlar jacket was too big, and Harry could feel the heat from his back leaking out through the openings along his neck and waist, his arms rippling in gooseflesh as the wind bit up his sleeves. Fortunately, the sleek helmet kept his ears warm and his face protected.

But without the sting of the late October air, Harry had no external excuse to blame for the hot tears of rage and pain ghosting down his cheeks.

_Shelby…_

He gripped the handle reflexively, and the motorcycle shot forward, teetering. Kicking his legs out, Harry managed to slow the monstrosity down and level, the machine whining like a caged animal. It was a cheetah, fierce, wild, and fast, being driven by bi-polar sloth with an inferiority complex and jelly thumbs.

Harry was a bicycle person himself, preferring manpower over that of two hundred horses and four work parts rather than that of four thousand. The more things an object did, the more ways it could break. And Harry broke things on an hourly basis—eggs, dishes, rules…

Relationships.

He carefully swiveled around a corner. Harry was being stupid, and he kept chiding himself for it. He'd driven a motorcycle twice in his life: once, on a romantic romp in the country, and again during a riveting game of ExciteBike. Neither had been an experience to really give him any kind of indication that he should ever, _ever,_ ride again. One even ended in a fiery grind against a guardrail, and a horrifying plunge into an endless ravine.

With a sardonic smile, Harry idly wondered if he'd loose his last life today. The first he lost to the two-dimensional demons of Nintendo, the second he gave to the love of his existence, and the third was about to be plastered over New York in an attempt to destroy the ever-sucking bastard who had made all of them pointless.

_12:45…_

Draco Malfoy had been the driving force to his life for as long as he could remember. There was no reason to do anything if it didn't, in some way, rile Draco up. Harry couldn't escape him. After a petty refusal in primary school on Harry's part, they were doomed to always clash. They attempted several times to diverge paths, but each _he'd-never-end-up-here_ move managed to lead them to the same places, in life's unfair desire to always have the last laugh.

Like now. Harry was headed to the same place Draco was and they were going to meet, but this time, it would be the last.

_Parkside._

Ironically, they had more things in common besides the ability to annoy each other. For instance, they both enjoyed an occasional meal of food, and often wore socks. They also appeared to share the same taste in romantic partners. This wouldn't be the first time Harry had caught Draco cavorting with those he shouldn't. And it wouldn't even be the most painful. But it would be the last. Harry was going to expose him, and then…well, he wasn't quite sure yet.

He vividly recalled the first time he seem them. Ginny, his sweet, loving Ginny, _his Ginny, _sitting across from Draco's charming, thieving face, both of them smiling, both of them laughing.

Together.

In how many ways? Staring at the picture-perfect couple, she, adulterous Ginny with her ruby waves and simpering curves, and he, lying Draco, teeth gleaming and Armani-covered shoulders broad, Harry could only answer:

What a stupid question.

Catching them had been an accident. While attempting to visit during lunch only to be, once again, given the _in-a-meeting_ response by a furtive secretary that wouldn't meet his eye, an abashed Harry had taken to the streets to at least enjoy the cooling afternoon. There, in a small but tasteful café _right across from the goddamned office_, he'd seen them, Draco and Ginny, sitting at a table with fresh daisies, smiling and nearly touching.

God-fucking-damn Malfoy and his way with people. Well, all people except Harry.

While slowing to turn another corner, Harry felt his front wheel slip, the tread loose against a hidden sheet of ice. Was it that cold already? He forced him self to cool, chanting a calming mantra from his yoga class. He slowed to an even more sluggish pace, the coiled engine in the foreign feline hissing in discontent. Harry didn't want to die. Not yet, anyway. Not before he broke Malfoy's perfect and pretty nose. Then the world could do to him as it wished.

The worst part wasn't that he lost his love to who he had thought, on some level, was a friend. No. What really boiled Harry's blood was that not only was he being cheated on, but so was Ginny. Despite what was happening, he still found his protectiveness of her consuming him.

_Shelby…_

Who was Shelby? What did she have on Ginny? Her name, followed by different times but always at the same location, had cropped up on various Post-Its for a while. Draco and Harry had, once again, been paired up by fate on a mutual venture. He had been in Draco's office many times. A wayward glance into the wastebasket had brought the first note to his attention, but Harry thought nothing of it. But a similar message was in there the next week, and the next.

Soon, Harry found himself empting the trash, searching through it for canary-yellow, three-by-three squares. He found another before, curious, he made a move.

It'd taken him a while to find Park Side Restaurant by bike, but when he did, he was surprised by its closeness. By auto transit, he'd guess it'd be around fifteen minutes on a good day. The outside was simple; small and white, street-level, with green awnings and weather-pertinent plants. Inside was elegant but not overpowering, with tasteful Italian art and attentive waiters, dressed in pristine black-and-white serving uniforms. The brick walls were cozy, and the wicker chairs comfortable. When he glanced at the relatively moderately priced menu, Harry began to doubt himself. This place wasn't Draco's usual style—would he really bring a potential lover here? But when his food arrived with its scintillating smells and flavors, Harry understood. The restaurant was inconspicuous yet delightful, close yet hidden. Charming, like Draco.

The perfect place to invite an affair.

Harry found no more notes after his adventure, however. He wanted to confront Draco, but had no proof to do so, and no business rifling through his trash in the first place. Meetings went on as usual, and Harry kept unusually quiet. And then he had caught Draco with Ginny.

It had hurt, more than Harry wanted to say. He'd drank himself into a stupor that night. It didn't take much—Harry hardly ever drank. He wasn't good at it. It would take him two hours to finish a hard lemonade, and he'd still get headaches.

_Slow down_, he reminded himself. _Ice._

For once in his life, he didn't know what to do. If he ratted on one he ratted on the other—he couldn't afford to lose a partner, business or otherwise.

His codependence frightened him. When had he fallen so hard?

Harry wobbled to a stop at an intersection. He was glad that the tinted shield hid his face, and therefore his embarrassed blush, but horrified that it made him look like the posing amateur he was. He shouldn't have burrowed the motorcycle, but he was determined to face Draco in the act, and that required joints that weren't frozen solid by a half-hour bike ride. He'd sit at a corner table near a window (Draco's seat of choice), in plain sight, and stare Draco right in the face as he and his little sequined lady came strolling through the doorway.

Despite how soothing the respite was to both Harry's body and the purring beast's transmission, the stop gave him time to think and remember. He wanted to keep the rage fresh, be only filled with hate, but oddly enough, only pleasant thoughts entered his brain. His throat constricted as the best moments of his life replayed before his eyes.

_Sitting in front of that flawless face, another's leg brushing against his own…_

_Fresh grapes pressed against his lips, during a Tuscan summer…_

_Laughter in the kitchen, watching firecrackers during the Americans' holiday…_ _T_

_he teasing touches, the ache, the yearning…_ Harry swallowed.

_Please_, he begged himself, _no. Don't go there. _But it was too late.

_Hot breath against his neck, soft skin under his hands. Their first time together, their last time alone. Hitched cries, so close, arching, entangling, an old leather seat beneath their thighs…so close, tingles, hisses, his own choked cry, so close…_

_A car beneath the setting sky…a car sliding through an intersection, slamming into traffic…slamming into each other…passion…_

He didn't want to remember. God, he didn't want to remember. It hurt. So much. And he was alone. _I_

_ love you, finally said, the smell of pine…_

Don't.

_Cars diving over each other…_

It took Harry a moment to realize that reality had mixed into his flashbacks. He had never been in a car accident before, and the wreckage speeding toward him seemed oddly solid. Was it real?

It was oddly quiet as the toppling cars tumbled over his head. When his body slammed into the taxi next to him, he couldn't feel fear or pain. Rather, he found himself curious. Did his life just flash before him because he was going to die, or was he going to die because he had gotten an unfair chance to relieve the best moments of his being? Apparently, the chicken and her egg were not the only conundrums privy to that paradox.

_Please_, he tried again, not noticing the roaring tiger slipping from between his knees and put to final rest underneath a rolling UPS truck, _don't remember._

In just a few short seconds, Harry Potter would get the second wish of his life; the first for true love, and the next for the ability to not recall a single moment of its existence.

* * *

"_Start spreading the news,_ _I'm leaving today."_  
_Frank Sinatra_

* * *

**NEXT TIME:** There was no mistaking Draco Malfoy. He was perfection, unattainable, and powerful, and the only one of his kind. Steven had never seen him at anything other than his best; but as they pulled the mangled motorcycle from the Seventh Street carnage, he saw the magnificent man falter, and idly wondered who this imposter was, and what he had done with Draco Malfoy.

Please visit the other three companion books to this series, available under this penname.

And as always, please review. I even like one-word responses!


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